LANSING - The state is installing cable median barriers and extending guardrails along a three-mile stretch of U.S. 127 in the Lansing area.

The $575,435 project runs from Interstate 496 north into southern DeWitt Township and is expected to be finished by July 27, the Michigan Department of Transportation said.

The new high-tension cable barrier is going up along a stretch of freeway where cross-median crashes have occurred, and state officials say the system is highly effective at preventing vehicles from careening through the median and into oncoming traffic.

But studies also suggest that crashes involving only minor injuries or property damage are likely to rise once the barrier is installed.

Michigan began installing cable median barriers in 2008 and had completed about 380 miles as of last fall. An MDOT spokesman said he did not have an updated figure.

The system consists of steel cables stretched along posts that are designed to break easily upon impact. The cables stretch to slow the vehicle's momentum, spreading the force of the impact laterally.

State officials began studying the effectiveness of cable barriers in 2011. In a 2014 report, MDOT's Bureau of Field Services estimated they had saved 20 lives and prevented more than 100 serious injuries.

The barriers stopped 97% of the vehicles that hit them and reduced crossover crash rates by 87%, according to the study. Fatal and severe injury crashes fell by 33% after the barriers went up.

Vehicles were slightly more likely to penetrate cable barriers than traditional metal guardrails or concrete barriers, but the cable system does a better job at keeping vehicles from bouncing back into traffic after a crash, the researchers said.

The trade-offs: While cable barriers cost significantly less to install than other types of guardrails, they're more easily damaged and cost more to repair and maintain. Also, the number of crashes involving only property damage or minor injuries increased by 155%, the researchers said.

Those crashes would include weather-related slide-offs, when vehicles that otherwise would stop in the median or on the shoulder are damaged when they hit the barrier.

That's a reasonable price to pay for saving lives, state officials said.

"This project confirmed that cable median barriers are saving lives in Michigan by preventing crossover crashes," Carlos Torres, MDOT's project manager for the study said in a published summary. "The increase in minor, property-damage only crashes is a small tradeoff compared with the live-saving benefits of cable barrier."

MDOT provides special training to first-responders so they know how to cut steel cables properly. Lansing Township firefighters were being trained on Wednesday, MDOT spokesman Aaron Jenkins said.

Some critics have contended that steel cables can slice through vehicles and might be more dangerous for motorcyclists than steel beam or concrete barriers. The MDOT study said the barriers did not significantly impact motorcycle crash trends.

A cross-median crash that killed a Michigan State University freshman in 2016 prompted the state to install a cable median barrier along 1.7 miles of Interstate 96 in the Williamston and Webberville areas.

The Kiefer Foundation – established in memory of Mitchel Kiefer, 18 – covered half of the $300,000 cost. State officials called it the first public-private partnership of its type in Michigan.

In February, two people were seriously injured along that section of freeway when their eastbound vehicle went into the median and hit the cable barrier along the westbound lanes. The vehicle ended up on its roof in the westbound lanes.

It was not clear if the crash might have been worse without the barrier being in place.

Statistics about cross-median crashes on U.S. 127 through Lansing, East Lansing and Lansing and DeWitt townships were not available. But police said there have been several along that stretch in recent years.

In August 2017, a 27-year-old Lansing man died in a cross-median crash on U.S. 127, just south of I-496 in East Lansing.

Police said a southbound driver crossed the median, causing the victim's northbound vehicle to go off the freeway and roll down an embankment. A woman from northern Michigan was charged with nine felony counts in connection with the crash.

Lansing Township police Chief Adam Kline said he doesn't know the advantages or disadvantages of cable barriers. But some type of median barrier would likely reduce the number of serious-injury crashes, he said.

"(Cross-median) crashes tend to be more serious than other types of crashes, especially when a vehicle is going 70 mph," Kline said. "Head-on collisions are more serious than a sideswipe of a guardrail."

Contact Ken Palmer at (517) 377-1032 or kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBPalm_lsj.